SKT’s Reign Ends As A New One Starts: Samsung Galaxy Is The World Champion

Samsung Galaxy’s fight for redemption has been completed after dethroning the 2015 and 2016 World Champion, SKT1 Telecom to be crowned as the League of Legends World Champions at The Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing, China.

In a rematch of last year’s Worlds, Samsung did not waste the opportunity and did not hold back, giving any room for SKT–with League’s greatest player, Faker–to create runs. Samsung shocked everyone with a complete domination, sweeping SKT in a 3-0 series. Additionally, this is Samsung’s second Summoner’s Cup and the third time to appear in a Worlds Finals. Even though Samsung was not among the favorites to win this year’s Worlds, they took down giants Longzhu and Team WE during the knockout stages to earn their rematch against SKT.

With SKT struggling throughout the whole Worlds, Samsung became the favorites to win. And Samsung just did that. They played like champions and completely ended an SKT dynasty to come. We’ve broken down the highlights of the three games to show you how they became World Champions.

Game 1

Samsung perfected this match, holding down SKT with one tower and overpowering team fights leaving SKT with no kills. Samsung completely controlled the phases of the game, except a Baron steal from Peanut in what turned out to be an SKT massacre of a 4-kill by Samsung. The difference is that Samsung did not get cocky.–knowing SKT’s capabilities to create comebacks. “It’s still 0-0. SKT is still going to come back.’ [And] after we won Game 2, [we said], ‘It’s still 0-0. SKT still has something in their pocket. They’re still SKT.’ We just kept on focusing on not getting excited and just staying focused the entire time.” Crown said in an interview.

Game 2

SKT fell into the worst hole having a 0-2 standing after getting routed by Samsung faster than the first game. Huni picked a Yasuo, but did not cause impact the whole game. After this game, Samsung had the opportunity to end the dynasty and finally create their own.

Game 3

Of course, the reigning champions will not give up easily–especially the very competitive Faker. They swung and put up a fight after opening the game with an 8k gold lead over Samsung. Both teams kept their ground and stood there like boxers, swinging punches. But, after team fights finished, Samsung got the Baron kill and it was enough to push to the SKT’s Nexus.